Even six inches of snow couldn’t keep Rufus Wainwright from speaking at the Oxford Union yesterday afternoon.

In an amusing and informative hour long Q&A session he talked about his forthcoming opera Prima Donna, reminisced about Jeff Buckley, talked about making his next album with just piano and vocals. “I’m the opposite of Dylan, I’m going backwards, I’m going acoustic!” he joked, keeping the 200 plus crowd warm with laughter.

Rufus won’t be in sunny LA for the Grammy Awards this Sunday, where he has been nominated in the hotly contested ‘Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album’ category (for ‘Rufus Does Judy At Carnegie Hall’).

Undoubtedly one of the highlights of the Grammy’s will be a performance by Robert Plant & Alison Krauss.

Jason Mraz will also be in attendance. He’s been nominated in 3 categories: Song of the Year (for ‘I’m Yours’), Best Male Pop Vocal Performance and Best Engineered Album.

His album ‘We Sing. We Dance. We Steal Things’ is unstoppable at present and has just turned Gold and is still sitting in the Top Ten this week. His irresistible single “I’m Yours” is knocking on the door of the Top Ten and is currently No.11 in the chart.

Tickets for the summer leg of Madonna’s phenomenally successful ‘Sticky & Sweet Tour’ went on sale today in London and Manchester and sold out in minutes.

Madonna brings her acclaimed ‘Sticky & Sweet Tour’ to London’s 02 Arena July 4th, 2009 and Manchester’s MEN Arena July 7th.

Karima Francis is continuing to make waves this year, her infectious new single “Again”, out March 9, 2009, is the Radio 2 record of the week next week.

If you haven’t seen Karima she is playing London’s Barfly on Tuesday (Feb 10th). A must see gig and a chance to hear tracks from her forthcoming debut album ‘The Author’, out March 23rd. Details of her new UK tour in March will be announced next week.

We’re very excited about the new Lightning Seeds album in June, their first in ten years. Ian Broudie is back and has penned a disc full of wonderful new songs.

Early reaction to the Depeche Mode album ‘Sounds of the Universe’ is hugely positive. First single “Wrong” is a fine introduction and “Peace” seems to be a firm favourite. We can’t wait for the 02 show in May.

Will Young’s Question Time appearance raised more than eyebrows last night as it got the highest ratings for the last six years with 750,000 extra tuning in.

Vagabond played a short, tight set last week at Water Rats. They just keep getting better and better. Ladies down the front swooned over Irrepressible front man Alex Vargas, he really is one to watch.

Debut single “Sweat (Until The Morning)” sounds cracking live as does “I’ve Been Waiting” and “Don’t Wanna Run No More”. This guitar based six piece have an r&b pop sound like no one else.
We can’t wait for their debut album in May. Their producer Brian Higgins was in the audience on Tuesday.

Sara Cox has been bigging up Just Jack’s hot new single “Embers” out March 30th. She gave the track its first ever airplay and has been playing it ever since.

Just Jack releases his new album ‘All Night Cinema’ April 6th, with news of a tour to follow very soon.

The Fray release their eagerly anticipated self-titled new album on Monday (Feb 9th). On Tuesday (Feb 10th) they will showcase the album at a sold out show at the Scala.

Jersey Budd will support at Starsailor on Wednesday (Feb 11th) at The Luminaire.

Robyn Hitchcock has a busy week in-store. He kicks off his 11-date UK tour tomorrow (Feb 7th) in Glasgow, featuring a must see gig at London’s Union Chapel (Feb 12th). Next week he releases his stunning album ‘Goodnight Oslo’.

Miss this at your peril, R.E.M. re-release their seminal album ‘Murmur’ on Monday. The 25th Anniversary Deluxe Edition features that original landmark album re-mastered plus an additional disc with a previously unreleased concert recorded at Larry’s Hideaway in Toronto three months after Murmur’s April release.

On March 24th, 2009, Capitol Records will release The Decemberists’ ‘The Hazards Of Love’, the follow-up to the group’s 2006 breakthrough, ‘The Crane Wife’, which NPR listeners voted their favorite album of the year.

The Decemberists on amazon.com

The Decemberists on amazon.co.uk

With their fifth full-length album, the Portland-based quintet of Colin Meloy, Chris Funk, Jenny Conlee, Nate Query and John Moen solidifies its standing as one of the most innovative creative forces in music today. In an age when singles rule and the death of the album has been pronounced by many, The Decemberists – who will be featured in a live session on NPR’s “World Café” today – have fashioned an anomaly: a record that demands to be listened to from start to finish and reveals more with each subsequent play. The 17-song suite, recorded with the band’s longtime producer, Tucker Martine, is rooted in ancient language and imagery, yet entirely modern and accessible.

Eager to share a bit of the new music with fans before street date, The Decemberists are making “The Rake’s Song” available as a free download beginning today at www.decemberists.com.

The album began when Meloy – long fascinated by the British folk revival of the 1960s – found a copy of revered vocalist Anne Briggs’s 1966 EP, titled ‘The Hazards of Love’. Since there was actually no song with the album’s title, he set out to write one. Soon he was immersed in something much larger than just a new composition.

‘The Hazards Of Love’ tells the tale of a woman named Margaret who is ravaged by a shape-shifting animal; her lover, William; a forest queen; and a cold-blooded, lascivious rake, who recounts with spine-tingling ease how he came “to be living so easy and free” in the aforementioned “The Rake’s Song.”

Lavender Diamond’s Becky Stark and My Brightest Diamond’s Shara Worden deliver the lead vocals for the female characters, while My Morning Jacket’s Jim James, Robyn Hitchcock and the Spinanes’ Rebecca Gates appear in supporting roles. The range of sounds reflects the characters’ arcs, from the accordion’s singsong lilt in “Isn’t it a Lovely Night?” to the heavy metal thunder of “The Queen’s Rebuke/The Crossing.”

“There’s an odd bond between the music of the British folk revival and classic metal,” says Meloy. “A natural connection between, like, Fairport Convention and Black Sabbath – of course, Sandy Denny from Fairport even sang with Led Zeppelin on ‘The Battle of Evermore.’ I think there’s a shared sense of narrative and ambience, of moving beyond the first person in your writing. And I thought it would be interesting to mess around with that.”

The Decemberists will tour this spring, playing ‘The Hazards Of Love’ straight through for the show’s first half and older material for the remainder. Ambitious, yes – but this is a band that doesn’t shy away from major stage productions, having performed ‘The Crane Wife’ with full orchestral accompaniment on several 2007 dates, including a stop at the historic Hollywood Bowl with the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Upcoming tour dates will be announced shortly.

The track listing for ‘The Hazards Of Love’ is as follows:

1. Prelude
2. The Hazards of Love 1 (The Prettiest Whistles Won’t Wrestle the Thistles Undone)
3. A Bower Scene
4. Won’t Want for Love (Margaret in the Taiga)
5. The Hazards of Love 2 (Wager All)
6. The Queen’s Approach
7. Isn’t it a Lovely Night?
8. The Wanting Comes in Waves / Repaid
9. An Interlude
10. The Rake’s Song
11. The Abduction of Margaret
12. The Queen’s Rebuke / The Crossing
13. Annan Water
14. Margaret in Captivity
15. The Hazards of Love 3 (Revenge!)
16. The Wanting Comes in Waves (Reprise)
17. The Hazards of Love 4 (The Drowned)

The Decemberists Official Website
The Decemberists MySpace

Acclaimed guitarist, singer and songwriter Robyn Hitchcock is set to embark on an 11 date, full band tour in February 2009, performing songs from his forthcoming album ‘Goodnight Oslo’.

Robyn Hitchcock on amazon.co.uk

Robyn Hitchcock on amazon.com

Recorded with friends and longtime cohorts The Venus Three – Peter Buck (guitar) and R.E.M. mainstays Scott McCaughey (bass, vocals) and Bill Rieflin (drums) – and Ryuichi Sakamoto, ‘Goodnight Oslo’ is Robyn’s first album in three years. It follows previous Venus 3 collaborations ‘Ole! Tarantula’ (2006) and the ‘Sex, Food, Death and Tarantulas EP’ (2007).

Boasting ten new songs, ‘Goodnight Oslo’ features “Up To Our Nex”, a track written for Jonathan Demme’s acclaimed new film ‘Rachel Getting Married‘ starring Anne Hathaway, which opens early next year after premiering at last month’s London Film Festival.

Robyn recently journeyed to the Arctic with the Cape Farewell Project, part of an intrepid crew that also included Martha Wainwright, KT Tunstall, Jarvis Cocker and Feist. He is currently touring the US with his ‘I Often Dream Of Trains’ show.

Robyn Hitchcock February 2009 UK Tour Dates:

(Dates and information subject to change.)

February 2009

Sat 7th GLASGOW, ABC2
Sun 8th NEWCASTLE, Academy 2
Tue 10th LEEDS, Brudenell Social Club
Wed 11th BIRMINGHAM, Glee Club
Thu 12th LONDON, Union Chapel
Fri 13th BURY, The Met
Sat 14th BRACKNELL, South Hill Park Arts Centre
Mon 16th BRIGHTON, Komedia
Tue 17th CAMBRIDGE, Junction 2
Wed 18th BRISTOL, The Fleece
Thu 19th CARDIFF, The Globe
Support provided by Catherine Feeny

Tickets On Sale Now

Robyn Hitchcock Official Website
MySpace

The show takes place March 24th, 2008 and is scheduled to include special guests Robyn Hitchcock, Foals and Duke Spirit.

Tickets go on sale Friday February 15th, 2008 at 9am and are priced at 55 GBP/45 GBP/40 GBP/25 GBP (may be subject to booking fee).

Available from Live Nation and by telephone from 0844 576 5483 (cc 24 hrs).

Royal Albert Hall ticket phone line 0207 589 8212 (Limited tickets). Royal Albert Hall Official Website.

All profits will go to the ICA, a non-profit arts institute and registered charity. ICA Official Website.

Produced by Jacknife Lee and R.E.M., ‘Accelerate’ is released March 31st, 2008 on Warner Brothers.

The first single “Supernatural Superserious” is released February 11th digitally with a physical release to follow.

R.E.M. are also set to tour the US from May 23, 2008 to June 21 before embarking on a European tour starting July 2nd in Amsterdam.

UK dates will be announced shortly.

An official countdown for the album has already begun on Nighty Nights, which launched January 1st.

R.E.M. on Myspace
R.E.M. Official Website